Hello all and welcome to my followers new and old! It has been a manic month for birthdays and anniversaries and with the kids only just going back to school I have been busy trying to keep up with my cards!

Today my youngest son who has just reach the grand age of 8 is having a sleep over with two of his little friends. We had a group of his friends come to see Smurfs 3D at the cinema and then went for a pizza and now the two remaining ones are playing quietly with him upstairs. I hope they don't stay awake to late as I want to be bright and bushy tailed to go to Ally Pally tomorrow for the Stamping and Scrapbook show!

Apart from my son's birthday this week I have also had our gorgeous niece's birthday.

First a quick bit of background not only is Grace gorgeous but she loves monkeys so much that my sis in law has two cuddly toy ones so that she is never without her monkey! I thought it would be a good idea to send her a card from my two little monkeys to their lovely cousin!

I used a digi set called Animal Crackers by Libby Pritchett & Tracey Howard from Sweet Shoppe Designs. I used a branch of a tree and two cute monkeys and arranged and printed them from Publisher. I then decoupaged their heads, flowers and some leaves and covered them in glossy accents to make them stand out a little. Finally some wiggly eyes were added and a sentiment backed onto some pink paper.

Our card to our niece was made with a stamp I have had for ages and love using it for babies and little ones.

Stamped in pink onto white linen card stock.

Layered onto pink card and silver linen card stock..

I then added a bow, glamour dust to its ears and paws and a few gems onto the card.

I hope she likes it! Anyway I must go and check on the little ones upstairs and get them ready to snuggle down for a dvd, wish me luck!

Sometimes I can spend hours thinking of ideas for cards and other times I will see something and the ideas just flow! I saw a Digital Paper set by Lauren Grier from Sweet Shoppe Designs, I can't find it on there now so I think it's retired. It's full of monsters and great backing papers.

I wanted to make some quick cards for the kids to give to their little friends on their birthdays and made these in a matter of minutes.

I punched the little faces out with my circle punch and stuck them on with some foam pads.

I added some wiggly eyes that I bought from the Factory Shop and used Glossy Accents on their hats to make them shiny.

Same idea as the previous card but with another wonderful backing paper.

Here I used one of the backing papers and added a 3D sticker that I bought in a set from the Factory Shop.

This one has girly colours suitable for a tom boy!

I really enjoyed playing with these papers and it feels good to have a little stash of cards ready for all the birthdays coming up!